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Election result: no ‘authoritative command’

mandate-gif

My dictionary describes “mandate” thusly: an authoritative command or instruction.

That’s pretty clear, correct?

So, it’s fair to ask: Does a presidential election in which the winner captures more electoral votes than the other candidate, but who fails to win — by an apparently growing margin — the popular vote deliver a “mandate” for the victorious candidate?

I would say categorically, “no!”

Here is what we are facing with the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States. He won, by a comfortable margin, the electoral votes he needed. His opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is continuing to pile up more actual votes than Trump.

The president-elect made some bold pledges while winning. He’s going to build a wall across our southern border, ban Muslims from entering the country, repeal Obamacare, revoke trade deals.

He said that “I alone” can fix what he believes is wrong with the country.

Does an election result that we’ve witnessed give him license to do what he promised to do?

I do not question the legitimacy of Trump’s election. He won this race fair and square. The system wasn’t “rigged” to ensure his election. Sure, some will argue that it was. Keep saying it. It’s not so.

However, I do not sense that voters delivered a “mandate” for him to make sweeping changes.

Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 with 43 percent of the vote. Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 also with 43 percent of the vote and was re-elected four years later with 48 percent; George W. Bush was elected in 2000 with one more electoral vote than Al Gore, who won more popular votes than Bush. Neither of those men’s victories commanded “mandates” any more than Trump’s. Their victories were equally valid.

For that matter, John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 with slightly less than 50 percent of the vote, and by a margin of fewer than 140,000 ballots. Is that a mandate … an “authoritative command”? Hardly.

Trump’s fans are continuing to crow about the mandate that their guy captured while defeating a candidate virtually every media pundit, politician and so-called “expert” knew would become the next president.

The Trumpkins need to tone down the boasts. They need to understand that effective and constructive governance is a shared responsibility, that the winners must work with those they defeat.

In this case, more than half of those who voted ended up on the losing end of this election, which adds volume to their voice.

Trump’s mandate? He needs to proceed with great care and caution.

national news, political news

Now … about the Electoral College

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Election Night 2016 proved to be one for the books.

Donald J. Trump got elected president of the United States despite being outvoted by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But wait! He won more electoral votes.

They’re still counting ballots and it appears that Clinton’s vote lead will expand before they’re all done.

Then came the question from one of the folks attending an election watch party at some friends’ house: Is the Electoral College in the U.S. Constitution?

Yes it is. Article II lays out the rules for the Electoral College. You know how it goes: We aren’t voting directly for president; we’re voting for electors who then meet in December to cast their votes for president in accordance — supposedly — with the majority of voters from their respective states.

I’ve found myself defending the Electoral College to people abroad who cannot understand how it works, or why the founders created the system. In November 2000, for example, my wife and I were in Greece, the cradle of western civilization and the birthplace of democracy. The Greeks are quite sophisticated about these things. However, they couldn’t quite grasp the idea of one candidate — Al Gore — getting more votes than George W. Bush, but losing the election. The 2000 presidential election was still in doubt while my wife and I were touring Greece. I defended the Electoral College as best I could.

Sixteen years later, we’ve had another circumstance with the “winner” getting fewer votes than the “loser.”

It’s the fifth time in our nation’s history where this has occurred. Three of them occurred in the 19th century; two of them have occurred within just the first two decades of the 21st century.

I’m not yet ready to jump on climb aboard the dump-the-Electoral College bandwagon. I have to say, though, that that I am beginning to grow less enamored of the archaic system that was devised by men who — in their time — didn’t grant rights of full citizenship to women or to blacks. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, for crying out loud and it took landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s to guarantee full citizenship rights to African-Americans.

The gap in time — just 16 years — between the last two elections in which one candidate wins the “popular vote” but loses a presidential election is giving me serious pause about the wisdom of a system that hasn’t changed with the nation.

national news, political news

Chaotic campaign becomes even more chaotic

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You want chaos on the election trail? Pandemonium in the board room? Shock in our living rooms?

Welcome to Presidential Election 2016, which is heading for what looks like the wildest finish in history. Why, this might even top the 2000 election, where Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, but lost the presidency because Bush got one more Electoral College vote than he needed.

I’m not going to predict that this campaign will end with that scenario. The grenade that FBI Director James Comey tossed into the middle of this fight has the potential of upsetting everything we thought about the bizarre nature of this bizarre campaign.

He said he’s found more e-mails that might have something to do with Hillary Clinton’s on-going e-mail controversy. We don’t know what’s in them. We don’t even know if she sent them.

Donald Trump calls it the “mother lode.”

I keep hearing two things: (1) The polls are tightening and (2) few voters’ minds have been changed because of what Comey has said.

Are we really and truly going to elect someone — Trump — who has admitted to behaving boorishly? Are we going to elect an individual with a string of failed businesses, lawsuits, allegations of sexual assault leveled against him?

We’re going to do this because the FBI director has inserted himself and his agency into the middle of a presidential campaign while saying virtually nothing of substance about what he might — or might not — have on one of the candidates?

Am I happy with the choices we face? No. I wish the major parties had nominated different candidates for president. We’re stuck, though, with these. We’re left with a choice. Of the two major-party nominees, the choice is clear — to me.

If only we could rid ourselves of the chaos.

national news, political news

Trump tears at the American democratic fabric

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Donald J. Trump’s refusal to agree to accept the results of the election in the event he loses — which now seems more probable than ever — raises historic concerns about where we might be headed once all the ballots are counted.

The Republican presidential nominee would not commit to accepting the outcome while responding to a question from debate moderator Chris Wallace. He’ll “look at it” when the moment comes, Trump said.

Trump is now on the cusp of losing the presidency to Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. We’ve had a long and well-established — and wisely admired — tradition in this country of losing presidential candidates accepting these results with grace and class.

Peaceful transition of presidential power begins right there.

Trump won’t promise to do that.

Oh, I can hear my friends on the right now griping about the “precedent” set in 2000 when Democratic nominee Al Gore refused to concede the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The immediate aftermath of that vote count was swathed in tension and controversy. The results from Florida weren’t yet known. That state’s electoral votes would be decisive in determining the next president. Gore conceded, then took it back once it became evident that another authority needed to step in; that would be the U.S. Supreme Court.

Well, the court ruled 5-4 that the Florida ballot recount should stop and that Bush would finish with 537 more votes in that state than Gore. Bush won the state — and was elected president.

What did Gore do? He conceded again — for the final time — and in the process brought some humor into the event by agreeing that “this time” he wouldn’t take it back.

He offered his full support to the new president.

So, let’s get off this idiotic notion that Al Gore did what Trump might do on Election Night.

Donald Trump is hinting that he might not accept the results no matter how wide the margin. In the process, Trump is feeding a dangerous — and demonstrably false — narrative about “rigged” and “phony” election results.

national news, political news

How will the loser concede this election?

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Allow me to play out what looks like an increasing probable political outcome.

It is that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be elected the 45th president of the United States of America.

The trend is moving rapidly in her favor in the wake of (a) two debate performances against Donald J. Trump and (b) the continuing fallout from Trump’s hideous statements about women.

So, what might we expect when the loser of this miserable election decides to issue a concession statement?

It’s been said that the winner’s victory declaration will set the tone for the next four years. What’s being said with increasing frequency is that the loser’s concession will be equally important.

Trump has waged a campaign of anger, fear, suspicion, innuendo, invective and bigotry. Listen to his supporters yell “Lock her up!” at those rallies. Listen, too, to them complain about alleged conspiracies involving the “liberal mainstream media” and “politically correct special interests” who are teaming up to “rig” an election that produces a desired result.

They are echoing the statements of their guy, Trump.

The candidate has bitched about a “rigged election.”

Tradition holds that the loser concedes once the election is decided and then declares his intention to work with the winner to heal the wounds opened up by months of bitter campaigning. Recall, though, when Al Gore conceded defeat in 2000, only to take it back when the Florida ballot-counting threw the proverbial wrench into the entire election process.

It’s fair to wonder what kind of concession statement Donald Trump would deliver when the time comes for him to call it quits.

Will he lead his ardent Republican “base” voters into lingering bitterness? Will he make an accusation of election-rigging? If that happens, and no one should be surprised if does, then we’re headed for a very difficult transition as the new president prepares to assume the most cherished role in the nation — if not the world.

My hope is that if he loses — and one is compelled to offer that qualifier until one candidate gets the Electoral College majority required to win — that he does so with a modicum of grace, decorum and good will.

However, my fear is that Trump would hold true to the form that enabled him to secure a major-party presidential nomination. It was a butt-ugly process and my concern is that he very well could make it an equally unattractive concession.

national news, political news

Gore re-enters the political arena

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Former Vice President Al Gore has returned to the partisan battles, making a campaign appearance today alongside fellow Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

His message to the crowd in Miami, Fla.? Every vote counts, he said.

He called himself “Exhibit A” in promoting “that truth.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/11/al_gore_every_vote_counts_consider_me_exhibit_a.html

Yes, the vice president collected more popular votes nationally than Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Yes, the recount in Florida ended with Bush tallying 537 more votes than Gore out of more than 5.8 million ballots cast in that state; then the U.S. Supreme Court — in a 5-4 decision — ordered the recount stopped. And yes, that meant Bush would be elected with 271 electoral votes, one more than he needed to become the 43rd president of the United States.

OK, but before we cheer the return of the Man Who Was Almost President, allow me to toss a bit of a wet blanket over the cheering section.

All the vice president had to do to win the election outright was to win more votes in his home state of Tennessee than Bush.

He didn’t. Gov. Bush collected more Volunteer State votes than its home boy. In fact, it wasn’t that close, as Gore lost Tennessee by about 80,000 votes.

I sympathize with Gore’s predicament, having been denied the presidency by a single vote on the highest court in America. If only he had won his home state, though.

If only …

legal news, national news, political news

Let’s stop the ‘consequences’ talk

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How about settling down just a bit, Republican members of Congress?

They’re all up in arms over remarks Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made about presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, about how she cannot imagine a country with Trump as president.

Rep. Randy Weber of Texas said Ginsburg ought to resign. Trump said the same thing. As the Hill reported: “The recent comments of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg on Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump are the antithesis of Lady Justice and in direct violation for what the highest court in the land stands,” he said. “Justice Ginsburg’s actions must be met with consequences. I agree with Donald Trump that she should resign.”

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/287537-house-republican-ginsburgs-actions-must-be-met-with-consequences

While I agree that Ginsburg crossed a line, violated an unwritten rule about justices getting too politically partisan, let’s take heed of what the framers did when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.

They created an independent branch of government called the “judicial branch.” Judges get lifetime appointments to their posts. The idea was to enable them to be free of political pressure brought by the executive or legislative branches of government.

The founders got it right.

Ginsburg didn’t need to pop off as she did about Trump. But she isn’t the first justice to get involved in politics. In the earliest years of the Republic, justices ran for political office while sitting on the Supreme Court.

That kind of overt politicking, of course, hasn’t occurred in many years.

I don’t expect the Supreme Court to hear cases involving Trump while Ginsburg is sitting on that bench. However, I don’t doubt the justice’s ability to judge any case involving Trump fairly.

Although the framers had the right idea when they created an independent judiciary, they could not possibly remove politics from its actions.

I bring you Bush v. Gore in 2000, in which five Republican-appointed justices stopped the ballot-counting in Florida with GOP candidate George W. Bush leading Democratic opponent Al Gore by 537 votes out of more than 5 million cast in that state. Bush won Florida’s electoral votes and became president by the narrowest of margins.

Do you think politics played any role in that decision?

Well, that’s how the system worked.

As for the present-day dustup over Justice Ginsburg’s remarks, she made them, but let’s quell the talk about “consequences.”

Ginsburg was entitled to say what she said.

business news, International news

No mulligans should be allowed on ‘Brexit’ vote

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Those silly British citizens just plain surprised the world with that vote to remove the United Kingdom from the European Union.

Now, it appears at least 1.5 million of them want a do-over. They want another chance to reverse what a majority of Brits said they wanted. They’ve reportedly signed their names to petitions being circulated throughout Britain.

A part of me wishes a do-over election was feasible and reasonable. I dislike the idea of Britain exiting the EU. I fear for the future of this stellar alliance of nations and what its potential disintegration might mean to us on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

But in reality, the decision ought to stand and the British government should play the hand its been dealt.

Were it possible to grant electoral mulligans, Americans might have sought such a thing after the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore collected more popular votes than George W. Bush but lost the Electoral College by a single vote when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the hand-counting of ballots in Florida; Bush had 537 more votes in Florida than Gore when the counting stopped, so he won the electoral vote by one more that he needed to be elected.

Our constitutional system worked.

The British referendum delivered a clear message, meaning that the British electoral system worked, too.

My hope — which is not exactly my expectation — is that the world financial markets will settle down eventually. Maybe it will settle down sooner than we think at the moment. That’s the one element of this tumult that upsets me … as a semi-retired American citizen.

A do-over on this referendum — which, incidentally, was a non-binding vote? It won’t happen. Nor should it.

The British government now must deal wit the harsh reality of re-creating an old relationship with the rest of Europe.

national news, political news

Take this veep job and shove it

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It’s been said of vice presidents of the United States that their main responsibility is to keep a bag packed in case they have to attend some foreign dignitary’s funeral.

Sure, they’re next in line to the presidency, but until the past quarter-century or so they’ve been treated with far less respect than they deserve.

As the crusty Texan, the late Vice President John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner once observed of the office — and this is the sanitized version of what he said — “It ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit.”

CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield has written an excellent essay that suggests that the vice presidency well might be relegated to its former inglorious status when the next president takes office in January 2017,

Here’s his essay: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-election-vice-presidency-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-213886

His premise is a simple one?

The Republican Party’s presumed nominee, Donald J. Trump, possesses an ego so y-u-u-u-g-e that he isn’t likely to take seriously a single word of advice given to him by whomever he selects as vice president. And the Democrats’ probable nominee? Hillary Rodham Clinton would share the White House with a man — her husband, former President Bill Clinton — who would serve as her “Economy Czar” and who would provide all the political and strategic advice she’ll need.

What does that mean for the vice president?

Well, I doubt we’ll see anything like the way, for example, President Lyndon Baines Johnson treated Vice President Hubert Humphrey when he reportedly summoned HHH to his office and lectured him about something while sitting on a commode.

Someone once asked President Dwight Eisenhower about the duties he’d assigned Vice President Richard Nixon. Ike responded, “If you give me a week, I’ll think of something.”

The vice presidency, as Greenfield notes, has become a very important office.

The past three VPs have assumed vital roles in their respective administrations, according to Greenfield. Al Gore became a valuable advisor to President Clinton; Dick Cheney, many have argued, grabbed too much power while serving as No. 2 to President Bush; and Joe Biden has become President Obama’s senior advisor/father confessor.

As Greenfield writes: “None of this means the there’ll be a shortage of veep wannabees. A number of Republicans, especially those without (or soon to be without) an official public role, have already signaled their availability: Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin. And it’s not hard to imagine that any number of Democrats would readily sign up, however challenging the job might be with Bill Clinton shuttling between East and West Wings.”

Well, at least the next VP will get to live in a nice house.

 

national news, political news, State news

Ryan: We’re heading for ‘divisiveness’ as a nation

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Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan is partially correct when he says the nation “is becoming divisive.”

I believe we’re already there, Mr. Speaker.

It’s not a condition that has just developed overnight, or certainly during the current election cycle.

It seems to my reckoning to have its roots in the 2000 election season, when a candidate for president was elected by the narrowest margin imaginable — and under circumstances that to this day hasn’t been accepted by many millions of Americans.

George W. Bush won the presidency after the Supreme Court stopped the recounting of ballots in Florida. The Texas governor had 537 more votes than Al Gore in that state. He won that state’s electoral votes, giving him the election — even though Gore had amassed more popular votes nationally than Bush.

For the record, I’ve never doubted the legitimacy of Bush’s election as president. The constitutional system worked.

But …

The spillover through the next several elections has seen a palpable division among Americans.

The current campaign has delivered an intense ratcheting up of the division that’s been there for some time now.

I’m not a fan of the speaker, but I do applaud him for speaking to our national idealism. He clearly was taking dead aim at the tone being delivered on the campaign trail by Donald J. Trump, who he didn’t mention by name. Everyone in the congressional conference room who heard Ryan knew of whom he was speaking.

As Politico described Ryan’s remarks: “He decried identity politics, criticizing those who pit groups of Americans against each other. He said the nation’s political system doesn’t need to be this bad. He accused both parties of staying comfortably in their corners, only talking to those who agree with them.”

Ain’t that the truth?

There once was a time when members of Congress — from both parties — talked openly with each other about how to legislate for the good of their states or the country. The Texas congressional delegation was known to have bipartisan breakfasts weekly, with House members breaking bread with each other and talking about issues that needed attention.

It doesn’t happen these days.

Instead, we’re seeing and hearing candidates and their rhetoric demonizing “the other side.” The No. 1 instigator of this campaign-trail anger is the GOP’s leading presidential candidate — Trump.

Ryan’s message will not resonate with the segment of the population that has bought into the Us vs. Them mantra that Trump and others are promoting. Ryan is now seen as a member of the hated “establishment.”

Ryan said: “What really bothers me the most about politics these days is this notion of identity politics. That we’re going to win election by dividing people. That we’re going to win by talking to people in ways that divide them and separate them from other people. Rather than inspiring people on our common humanity, on our common ideals, on our common culture, on things that should unify us.”

Is his message too sunny, too optimistic, too idealistic?

For the sake of our political future, I hope not.